Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, April 12, 1994                   TAG: 9404120104
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Neil Chethik
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FEMINISM'S NEW WING BLAMES WOMEN FOR PERPETUATING SEXISM

So it may come as a surprise that today, Jones, 51, a political scientist and author, is attempting to launch a new wing of the women's movement that puts its faith in - of all people - men.

Jones is founder of the Network for Empowering Women (NEW), and her philosophy goes something like this: After 30 years of battling, blaming and bashing men, it's time for women to acknowledge their role in perpetuating the sexist system that now exists.

``It's easy to say that it's all men's fault, but that's a cop-out,'' Jones said recently in a phone interview from her home in Alexandria. ``Men and women are co-conspirators. ... If women want equal rights, we must take equal responsibility.''

Four years ago, when Jones started articulating this philosophy in her writings and speeches, she says she was ignored by most women. The alumni magazine at her all-women alma mater, Wellesley College, refused to print her essay, ``Cheated by the Feminist Movement.''

But recently, she says, more women are challenging the conventional feminist perspective. The Wellesley alumni magazine suddenly agreed to publish her article. And other pro-male women's groups are forming, among them the Women's International Network for Healthy Relationships (Brookfield, Wis.), the Women's Freedom Network (Washington, D.C.) and Feminists for Men (Boulder, Colo.).

While these groups are a fraction the size of the more established National Organization for Women, Jones is so confident of NEW's future that she's investing in a series of ``gender reconciliation'' conferences to be held in Washington, D.C., Chicago, New York and other cities, beginning this fall.

On the surface, this all may sound good to men. Certainly, many women have been overzealous in their condemnation of men as evil, brutish and insensitive. And there's a case to be made that women contribute to sexism by expecting men to initiate sex, support their families and fight the wars.

But Jones doesn't stop there, and the deeper she plunges into her argument, the more it strains credulity. She claims, for example, that most battered women subtly provoke their own abuse. And date rape, she says, usually occurs because women have sent men mixed messages about their sexual availability.

These positions are insulting not only to many women, but to men as well. By assigning women responsibility for their own beatings and rapes, Jones is implicitly saying that men are too dense to realize that slapping, punching or sexually overpowering a woman is wrong.

Also, by taking the heat off men to share corporate and political power with women, Jones inadvertently supports the limited gender roles now available to both sexes. That's bad for men because it makes it harder to break out of the bread-winner role and choose full-time fatherhood or other, less traditional paths.

Still, Jones' kinder, gentler approach deserves a hearing, if only because it has the potential to change the tone of the gender debate from us-vs.-them to we're-in-this-together.

Yet such a change can work only if men are willing to meet Jones and her associates halfway - by sharing institutional power, by asking ourselves the hard questions about male violence, and by taking equal responsibility for the raising and care of our kids.

Men-tion

For a provocative look at the ideas and arguments of several pro-male feminists, check out Jack Kammer's new book, ``Good Will Toward Men'' (St. Martin's, $21).

Male call

Men and women: What is the biggest obstacle to male-female relations, and how do you suggest we overcome it? Send responses, comments and questions to the Men's Column, in care of the Features Department, Roanoke Times & World-News, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke, Va. 24010-2491.